Helen Keller Makes Me Proud to be a Liberal.

While listening to the Ed Schultz show on radio, I heard an exchange with a listener who identified himself as a conservative. He offered that participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement should, as he did, take steps to improve their own lives and not blame others for their problems. That kind of talk infuriates me, because it’s an easy way for Republicans to avoid taking a hard look at issues that broadly affect millions upon millions of Americans.

Well, as fate would have it, later that afternoon I came across some words written by Helen Keller, a person who knows a thing or two about overcoming life’s obstacles. She wrote:

“I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate–that we could mold our lives into any form we pleased… I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life’s struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about… I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.”

Helen Keller became an avowed socialist and fawning apologist for the nascent Soviet Union…an unpopular position to be sure…but it does not diminish the implicit humanity and compassion in her words. She understood the influence of circumstance and, more importantly, she felt no joy at the misfortune of others.

I confess to being ideologically driven; I find little that I am willing to compromise with those whose selfishness and greed overwhelms any sense of compassion and caring. But, more importantly, I am deeply saddened that my country’s fundamental immorality is on display for the rest of the world to see. America and Americans should be better than this.